Making fun of the Roma

The Slovak Spectator, 8 September 2003

Anti-Roma humour remains common within the Slovak media and on the
Slovak Internet, a fact that reflects the general attitudes of the
Slovak population, according to insiders. A brief bit of research
conducted by The Slovak Spectator (TSS) over the course of only two
days has revealed a number of sources promoting humour directed
against the Roma. The website of Orange, one of Slovakia's two
mobile telecommunications operators, was among them. One of the 44
categories of jokes in the entertainment section of the company's
website was called “Gypsies and Roma”. The site enabled
visitors to rate jokes and send them via email or SMS. When told about
the jokes on September 2, Orange spokesperson Peter Tsth said he knew
nothing of them and requested time to investigate. Within minutes, 42
of the 90 Roma jokes were removed. “It is very unfortunate for
us, because it is a huge faux pas,” said Tsth later. “Our
company would in no way dare to publish jokes which would in any way
discriminate, ridicule, or offend any part of the public or our
clients; therefore, I have contacted my colleagues responsible for the
content of the site's humour section and have asked them to adjust
the categories,” he added.

Already, by September 3 the “Gypsy and Roma” category, as
well as one called “Homosexuals”, had been removed from
the website. “I think the terms ‘Gypsies' and
‘Roma’ are included in the dictionary of the Slovak
language, and it was not our intention to use them with negative
connotations. We do, however, realise that these terms can be
interpreted in such a manner,” Tsth continued. He admitted
Orange was responsible for the content of its site. “The website
is prepared inhouse. A special division of our company is responsible
for the design, while the content is prepared by the communication
department,” said Tsth. However, Tsth also stressed his firm
gets the jokes from an external supplier. “We buy from the
database in good faith that there are no insulting, damaging, or
offensive jokes,” said Tsth. He would not specify who the
supplier was, claiming contractual obligations prevent him from doing
so. “The database of jokes is being used in the information
services of other companies as well,” he said. When asked
whether Orange may reconsider future collaboration with the joke
provider, Tsth answered: “Yes”.

Another website found in the course of The Slovak Spectator's
inquiry was the ὔfunnyὕ website. It includes a
category called “CDRoma”, which as of September 3,
contained 183 jokes that people can rate and send by email, SMS, or
using voice messaging. The website is intended primarily for young
people, according to tefan Fukas, the entrepreneur operating
the site. “The jokes are added by the users themselves,”
said Fukas. However, Fukas said not all entries make it to the site,
and his people are responsible for the content. “Every joke is
checked by one of our workers, so not each one is included,” he
said. He did admit that some of the published material could be seen
as unacceptable. “Perhaps those [jokes] that you have selected
are too much and should not be there,” he said. In his
explanation of why the jokes nevertheless were included, Fukas pointed
out the fact they are common in the culture and there is a demand for
them. “You know how it is people keep adding them and they are
also quite widespread,” he said. On those grounds, Fukas is at
this time not considering editing the published material. “If
there are any complaints or requests, I am open to the idea of the
jokes being reviewed. Then we can delete the most offensive
ones. However, people don’t complain, so I’m not in any
way pressed to take them off,” he said. Fukas was unable to say
how a Roma person might react to the jokes published on the
site. “I don’t know. I cannot say how he or she would
react. I assume the reaction would not be too positive,” he
said. None of the published jokes had been removed from the
&#147;funny&#148; website by the time The Slovak Spectator
went to print.

Representatives of the Roma community say all such
“humour” should be rooted out. “It is common to have
jokes about various communities that focus on their particular
stereotypes; even if they are particularly nasty, people still accept
them,” said Ivan Hriczko, director of the Roma Press
Agency. “However, purely racist jokes that ignite racial hatred
or portray violence directed against the Roma community as something
‘humorous' have no place in our society,” he
said. Interestingly, at the time that The Slovak Spectator started
looking into the issue, Hriczko received two jokes from the Orange
site sent via SMS. This led the Budapest based European Roma Rights
Center (ERRC) to send an open letter to Orange Slovakia CEO Pavol
Lancaric on September 1, asking for the jokes to be removed. In the
letter, provided to TSS by Hriczko, ERRC also asks Orange to issue an
apology to the Slovak Roma on its website, reprimand the responsible
individuals, and make a “substantial donation to Slovak Romani
organisations in an effort to repair the damage that has been
done”. According to Hriczko, it is the general widespread
prejudice against the Roma as an ethnic group that enables Slovak
companies to get away with publishing anti-Roma jokes. “One of
the causes [for the prejudice] is the fact that those responsible for
dealing with the Roma issue have an ineffective media strategy,
causing public awareness of the actual status of the Roma community to
be very low,” he said. “By preferring [to inform people
about] social aid programs for the Roma, they create the impression
that the entire ethnic group is socially unadaptable and cannot be
integrated,” he added. “The average reader doesn’t
have time to look for missing information, and therefore accepts what
is being presented as fact,” Hriczko said.

Despite the fact that anti-Roma jokes are common in Slovakia, Hriczko
said they do not represent a major issue for most Roma. “The
Roma community is so involved with its own problems that it perceives
this fact as irrelevant and fails to realise its great
significance,” he said. It is difficult to say whether
publishing jokes about a minority contradicts Slovak law, according to
experts. “There is no question that it's not
ethical. However, it's hard to draw the dividing line [between
what is legal and what is not],” said Jan Hrubala, a lawyer with
extensive experience in the field of human rights and the current head
of the government's anti- corruption unit. “Racial or
national insults and the stirring of racial hatred are criminal
offences. It would be necessary to investigate the nature of the
internet site. I can imagine that if the jokes exceed a certain
degree, the danger they pose to society can be sufficient for them to
be seen as criminal offences,” Hrubala added. If convicted,
perpetrators of such criminal acts could be sentenced to a fine or as
much as one year in prison. Hrubala pointed out there is no precedent
for the criminal investigation of racist jokes in
Slovakia. “Legal practice has not yet had the courage to set
clear boundaries for when [jokes are] illegal, in part because no one
has yet taken a serious look at it,” he said. However,
according to Hrubala, racist jokes could be eradicated from public
life if society stops tolerating them, there would be no need to take
legal action. “[In the West] even if you have people telling
racist jokes in pubs, it's not something the media would do. They
are ahead in this regard. If this were going on there, I’m sure
there would be strong opposition from citizen groups. It's a
matter of social attitudes,” he said.